Greentown Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Idea of the Game
• Components
• Setting up the game
• Start of the game
• Game Turns
  • Build (Bauen)
  • Erecting Buildings
  • Lead a Tour (Reisen)
• End of the Game
• Game for Two
• Variant
• Hints
• Alternate Starting Setups

Idea of the Game

Sleepy Greentown has decided to open itself up to outsiders. Nature, cultural, sporting and shopping sites are to be created to satisfy the tastes of various tourists.

During a turn decide whether to expand Greentown's street grid and at the same time erect your own buildings or to lead a tour through the town. Sometimes you will need to use opponents' buildings and share the profits.

Components

• 38 place tiles, each contains a build site with 2-5 streets connecting to adjacent tiles. A cow, tree or flower serves to more easily distinguish the difference between tiles having the same number of pathways.
• 2 hotels, which can always be used as tour exits or end points
• 36 Buildings (one set each per player comprising):
  • 3 discs = Sporting sites
  • 3 houses = Cultural sites
  • 3 cubes = Shopping sites
• 6 tree markers = nature
• Visitor cards. These contain the particulars of which sites the visitors wish to visit (preferred type and number of the sites on their tour)
• 112 Greenies (game money: 32 x 1 Greenie and 16 x 5 Greenies)
• 1 double turn marker
• 16 action markers (4 each of 'Bauen', 'Reisen', 'Bauen und Reisen', 'Bauen oder Reisen')
• Replacement parts: 2 Hotels, 2 Place Tiles (each having 6 connections), 3 double turn markers

Setting up the game

For your first playing it is recommended that the 10 place tiles, the 2 hotels and the 6 trees be set up as shown in the adjacent illustration. Two alternate setups can be found at the end of these instructions.

Two place tiles each having [number of] connections are removed from the game (replacement parts). (The number is missing from the printed text.)

The remaining place tiles are sorted by number and type into nine stacks and placed nearby. Cows, trees and flowers help to distinguish the various place tiles having the same number of connections.

Each player receives the game pieces of a particular color and four action markers which he places face up.

The visitor cards are sorted by number and placed face up in a stack. At the bottom are the nines, then the eights, then the sevens and on top, the sixes.

When playing with just three players, a "5" card is taken out of the game (not the "Startspieler" card). Each player is dealt a "5" card at random and reveals it. One of these "5" cards reads "Startspieler". The player who drew it is the starting player.

The player sitting immediately right of the start player, i.e. the last person to go in the round, receives the double turn marker.

The Greenies are placed nearby.

Start of the game

The game is played in clockwise order beginning with the start player.

The action markers mean that over the course of four rounds a player must select the actions Tour (Reisen), Build (Bauen) and Build and Tour (Bauen und Reisen) each once. In which order these are used is left to the discretion of the player. When "Build and Tour" is selected, the player must first Build and only afterward Lead a Tour.

At the start of the turn a player clearly announces which action(s) he would like to perform and flips over the corresponding action marker. Then he performs the action. After four rounds all of the action markers are once again turned face up.

The player going last in a round becomes the start player the next round. Before he starts the next round he gives the double turn marker to his righthand neighbor.

Game Turns

There are two types of actions: Build (Bauen) or Lead a Tour (Reisen). To Build, a player places 2 tiles or removes one and replaces it with another. To Lead a Tour, he fulfills the tourist wishes on his card.

Build (Bauen)

When Build is selected, one of the following three options must be chosen:

1. Lay two place tiles A place tile is laid so as to connect to the existing street network. It is required that the tile to be laid be selected from those which have the fewest connections. Thus at the start of the game a tile with two connections must be selected. Only when the supply of tiles with just two connections has been exhausted may tiles with three connections be selected.

2. Develop two place tiles When choosing this option the following restrictions apply: a) An already laid place tile is replaced by one from the supply which has exactly one more branch. If such a tile is not available, this tile cannot be developed. The player must select another tile. b) Removed tiles are placed back into the supply where they can be re-used later. c) When making an exchange at most one connection may be closed off. [That is, if one places a tile having three connections, then at least one of the former connections must remain intact; if there are four connections, at two of the former three connections must still be connected.] d) If the tile to be developed contains an opponent's building, then no existing connection can be destroyed. e) The entire route network must be connected after the exchange. However dead ends may be created (e.g. only usable if another tile is connected to it).

3. Lay a place tile and develop any place tile These two activities may be carried out in either order.

Erecting Buildings

If the player has placed at least one place tile and thus created a new build site, he may thereafter erect one of his buildings (cultural, sporting or shopping) on a vacant or tree occupied site. In the latter case the tree is then shifted to the vacant space of his choice.

Lead a Tour (Reisen)

The player choosing this option leads visitors to the sites corresponding to those displayed on the topmost visitor card and receives Greenies for it. The number displayed on the card indicates the number of sites the tourists visit. This number must always be exactly observed.

All locations count as sites, except:

• vacant spaces
• the hotel at the start of the route

Each tour starts at a hotel. The last station must also be a hotel. This can be the same as the starting hotel or a different one. Any hotel passed by a tourist during their trip counts as a site, but does not generate any Greenies.

The same building may be visited several times a turn. However, it is forbidden to use the same stretch of road (regardless of direction) more than once (for example, traveling back and forth is also not permitted).

If an occupied space is visited more than once during a tour it is also counted more than once as a site. However, such a site only pays once per tour.

Each type of site has a minimum number of times its type must be visited and a maximum number of times this type of site must be visited.

The Minimum number of visits is given by the number of solid (filled in) icons (for the corresponding site type).

The Maximum number of visits is given by the number of all symbols (for the corresponding site type).

Next the route from hotel to hotel is decided according to the site number shown.

Tip: On long routes use a few Greenies to mark the spaces between sites so that the route is easy to recognize.

Example of tourist wishes (Stops):

• Nature: 1, 2 or 3x
• Cultural: 1 or 2x
• Sporting: 1x
• Shopping: 0, 1, 2 or 3x
• Stop: Hotel at the end of the turn

Then it is determined whether all the tourist wishes have been fulfilled. For this purpose it is unimportant to which players the visited sites belong.

When the wishes of the tourists have been fulfilled, the owner of each visited site receives one Greenie. For each nature site visited, the active player receives one Greenie.

If a wish to visit a particular kind of site is not fulfilled, no Greenies are given for sites of this type. Instead, the active player loses a Greenie for each unfulfilled category. (Should income on a turn be negative - which actually is only theoretically possible - the player simply receives no Greenies.)

Players should keep the number of Greenies held secret.

After the tour the current player discards the tourist card and draws a new one from the top of the deck.

End of the Game

The game ends when a player has built all of his buildings or a player cannot draw a card on his turn.

Players who have not yet had a turn in the current round still take their last turns. The double turn marker may no longer be used (since it would otherwise begin a new round).

The winner is the player with the most Greenies. In case of a tie, the player who took his last turn earlier wins.

Game for Two

The double turn marker is not used. Each player always takes two turns in succession. Only on the first turn does the starting player only take one turn at a time.

If both earn Greenies, the player to receive more is instead just paid the difference. The other player receives nothing.

Variant

On his own turn, a player holding the double turn marker decides whether to use the marker immediately or save the opportunity for later.

Hints

One's first building is best placed next to the hotel, however not in the center space. Everyone goes to the hotel. But in the center trees may eventually become scarce.

By concentrating one's buildings on one side of the play area it's often possible to lead tours quite comfortably without having to give up points. But if opponents take trees out of your area or neutralize by use of dead ends, concentrating buildings can become a disadvantage.

At the start one should avoid giving points to other players. No doubt one can play quite well cooperatively as long as both players profit equally. But one who wades into tendentious payments, is sometimes left empty-handed.

A building located between several belonging to others has a good chance to be used by several players.

In many a game only two or three trees are reachable most of the time. Therefore: Always mind the trees.

Alternate Starting Setups

(Two set-up diagrams, not reproduced.)

1. If there is just one fewer tile it become increasingly harder to lead tours.
2. At the beginning most tiles have many open connections. As soon as there are no "five" tiles available, four tiles may no longer be swapped out.

In designing your own starting set-up, consider the following:

1. The more vacant tiles placed at the start, the easier it will be to find alternative routes.
2. It helps the flow of play if at the start of play there are many tiles with three open connections. If many of the tiles have only two open connections, the route is foregone conclusion. If on the other hand there are many tiles with four open connections, these are quickly promoted to "five" tiles so that the remaining "fours" can no longer be changed. Then it becomes especially important where one places which building.
3. One can also utilize the extra six-connection tiles and additional hotels. Then the game becomes relatively simple.